Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
From a Notebook that Never Was
The ridiculous, work, and dedication.
by Fernando Pessoa
Asterisks separate the short, autonomous prose pieces that follow. None was written in a notebook (see the longer note at the end for information on the author’s real notebooks). Some of the original manuscripts contain alternate words or phrases between the lines or in the margins; I have used the word or phrase I find most appealing for the translation. Lacunae and unfinished sentences—frequent inPessoa’s posthumously revealed work—are indicated by six dots: “. . . . . .”.—RZ
I always acted on the inside . . . I never touched life . . . Whenever I began to trace an action, I finished it in my dreams, heroically . . . A sword weighs more than the idea of a sword . . . I commanded large armies, won great battles, savored huge defeats—all inside me . . . I enjoyed strolling alone through green parks and down wide corridors, issuing commands to the trees and challenges to the hanging portraits . . . In the wide and dusky corridor that’s at the back of the palace I often strolled with my fiancée . . . I never had a real fiancée . . . I never knew how to love . . . I only knew how to dream of loving . . . If I liked to wear ladies’ rings on my fingers, it’s because I sometimes supposed that my hands belonged to a princess and that I, at least in the motions of my hands, was the woman I loved . . . One day I was found dressed up as a queen . . . I was dreaming I was my royal wife . . . I liked to see my face reflected, for I could dream it was someone else’s face—namely that of my beloved, since the reflection I saw denoted feminine features . . . How often my lips touched my lips in a mirror! . . . How often I clasped one of my hands with the other, or fondled my hair with my hand I’d become strange to, as if it were her hand touching me. It isn’t me who’s telling you this . . . Who’s speaking is what’s left of me.
* * *
Believing in nothing firmly and therefore accepting as equally valid, in principle (which is as far as they go), all opinions, and considering that a theory is worth only as much as the theorist, an emotion as much as the emotion’s expresser, I could never take seriously the literary dogma that consists in the use of a personality. Personality is a form of belief and, like all belief, impossible for the reasoner.
It’s a short step from believing in outer truth to believing in inner truth, from accepting a concept of the world as true to accepting a concept of our self as true. I don’t affirm that everything is fluid, since that would be an affirmation, but to our understanding everything is indeed fluid, and the truth, unfolding for us into various truths, disappears, since it cannot be multiple.
* * *
In me every thought, however much I’d like to preserve it intact, turns sooner or later into reverie. If I wish to set forth reasons or launch a train of argument, what comes out of me are sentences initially expressive of the thought itself, then phrases subsidiary to those initial sentences, and finally shadows and derivatives of those subsidiary phrases. I begin to meditate on the existence of God and soon find myself speaking of faraway parks, feudal processions, rivers that pass almost soundlessly beneath the windows of my contemplation . . . And I find myself speaking about them because I find myself seeing them, feeling them, and there’s a brief moment when my face is grazed by a real breeze rising from the surface of the dreamed river through metaphors, through the stylistic feudalism of my central self-abandon.
I like to think, because I know it won’t be long before I stop thinking. It’s as a point of departure that thinking delights me—a cold, metallic harbor station from which to set sail for the vast South. I sometimes try to focus my mind on a large metaphysical or even social problem, because I know that, ensconced in the hoarse voice of my reason, there are peacock tails ready to spread open for me as soon as I forget I’m thinking, and I know that humanity is a door in a wall that doesn’t exist, so I can open it onto whatever gardens I like.
Thank God for that ironic element in human destinies that makes dreams the mode of thought for the poor in life, even as it makes life the mode of thought—or thought the mode of life—for the poor in dreams.
But even dreaming channeled through thinking ends up making me weary. At which point I open my eyes from dreaming, go to the window, and transfer my dream to the streets and rooftops. And it’s in my distracted and profound contemplation of so very many roof tiles divided into rooftops, covering the astral contagion of people organized into streets, that my soul becomes truly detached from me, and I don’t think, I don’t dream, I don’t see, I don’t need to. Then I truly contemplate the abstraction of Nature—of Nature, the difference between man and God.
* * *
How often, in the age-old trajectory of the worlds, a stray comet must have brought an Earth to its end! A catastrophe so utterly material will determine the fate of countless mental and spiritual projects. Death spies on us, like a sister of the spirit, and Destiny . . . . . .
Death is our being subject to something outside us, and we, at each moment of our lives, are but reflections and a consequence of what surrounds us.
Death lurks in our every living act. Dead we’re born, dead we live, and already dead we enter death. Composed of cells living off their disintegration, we’re made of death.
* * *
As a child I used to save old cotton spools. I loved them with a sorrowful love—how vividly I remember—since their not being real filled me with compassion . . . One day I laid my hands on some miscellaneous chess pieces, and what happiness that was! I immediately thought of names for them all, and they passed into my dream world.
All these figures took on definite features. They had distinct lives. One of them, who I had decided was rowdy and liked sports, lived inside a box on top of my dresser, where each afternoon a streetcar passed by when I, and then he, would come home from school. The streetcar was made of the interiors of matchboxes, strung together somehow by wire. He’d bounce up and down when the car was in motion.
O my dead childhood! Forever living corpse in my breast! When I remember these toys I had as a boy already getting older, a sensation of tears warms my eyes, and a fierce and useless longing gnaws at me like a regret. All of that happened and has remained frozen and visible—seeable—in my past, in my perpetual idea of my bedroom from back then, spread out around my childhood person (who is unseeable except from within) going from my dresser to the nightstand, and from the nightstand to my bed, driving through the air the primitive streetcar that I imagined was part of the citywide network and that took my ridiculous wooden schoolmates home.
I endowed some of them with bad habits—smoking, stealing—but I’m not sexually inclined, and their only acts in this line were, I believe, a predilection for kissing girls and peeking at their legs, which seemed to me mere acts of play. I made them smoke rolled paper behind a large box that was on top of a suitcase. Sometimes a schoolteacher would come around. And it was with all their anxiety, which I obliged myself to feel, that I quickly hid the false cigarette and placed the smoker—who struck me as curiously nonchalant—at the corner to wait for the inevitable passing of the teacher, whom he greeted I don’t remember exactly how . . . Sometimes the figures were too far apart for me to move this one with one arm and that one with the other. I had to make them move alternately. This pained me the way it pains me today not to be able to give expression to a life . . .
Ah, but why do I remember this? Why didn’t I remain a child forever? Why didn’t I die there, in one of those moments, preoccupied with the wiles of my schoolmates and the as-if-unexpected arrival of my schoolteachers? Today I can’t do this . . . Today I have only reality, which I can’t play with . . . Poor little boy exiled in his manliness! Why did I have to grow up?
Today, when I remember this, I feel nostalgia for other things besides all this. More in me than my past has died.
* * *
The ancients hardly saw themselves. Today we see ourselves in all positions. Hence our self-horror and self-disgust.
Every man, to be able to live and love, needs to idealize himself (and, ultimately, those he loves). That’s why we love. But as soon as I see myself and compare what I see to an ideal—not high, even low—of human beauty, I give up on real life and on love.
The false aesthetic sensibility of the Greeks . . . How unhappy it must make a people to conceive such statues and be (inevitably) so imperfect physically, like all real humans!
That is, it would have made the Greeks unhappy if that’s how they’d felt. But there’s no sign of that feeling in their literature. It is, in fact, a purely modern feeling.
Even a beautiful woman does not satisfy like a statue. Because a woman is beautiful as well as other physical and moral things that are not beauty. A statue is only beauty. (It is also stone, but the stone is nothing for us, and so we ignore it, looking only at the beauty.)
* * *
Doing something contrary to what everyone else does is almost as bad as doing something because everyone else does it. It shows a similar preoccupation with others, a similar attention to their opinion—a sure sign of absolute inferiority.
That’s why I abhor people like Oscar Wilde and others who are intent on being immoral or infamous, and on impinging paradoxes and delirious opinions. No superior man deigns to grant other people’s opinion such importance that he’d bother to contradict it.
For the superior man, others don’t exist. He is his own other. If he wants to imitate someone, it’s himself he tries to imitate. If he wants to contradict someone, it’s himself he endeavors to contradict. He strives to hurt his own self, in its most intimate reaches. He plays tricks on his own opinions. He has long conversations with the sensations he feels, talking down to them and . . . . . .
Every man that exists is Me. I have all society inside me. I am my best friends and my truest enemies. The rest—what’s on the outside, from the hills and plains to people and . . . . . . —is all just Landscape . . .
The great defect of work and effort is that they can become habits. The same defect pertains to inaction. It also tends to become a habit. The right way for the superior man to be contrary is to refrain from having habits, or opinions, or a definite individuality.
But it’s not that we shun opinions and habits so as to smile at the opinions and habits of others . . .
To have a fixed personality, regular habits, and consistent opinions is to belong to oneself. We should always change our opinion, personality and intentions, without that opinion or . . . . . . ever coinciding with other people’s.
The superior man’s efforts should all be spent on trying to forget that the outer world exists.
* * *
I like you so much it embarrasses me. There are all sorts of good reasons not to like you, except that of not liking you, because I do. How fantastic to feel what we don’t want to, and to have an independent heart.
* * *
Man’s greatest triumph is to arrive at the conviction that his being ridiculous exists only for other people, and whenever they want it to exist. Then he’ll stop worrying about the ridiculous, which he cannot annihilate, since it isn’t in him.
The superior man, to enjoy his superiority in perfect calm, must teach himself to forget three things: the ridiculous, work, and dedication.
Dedicating himself to no one, he naturally demands no dedication from others. Sober, chaste, frugal, and touching life as little as possible so as not to be inconvenienced nor get too close to things, which could destroy their capacity for being dreamed, he isolates himself to accommodate his pride and his disillusion. He learns to feel everything without feeling it directly, since to feel directly is subjection—the subjecting of oneself to the action of the thing felt.
An Olympic Whitman, a Proteus of understanding, he lives in other people’s sorrows and joys without living them really and truly. He can, at his pleasure, set sail or stay behind when ships depart, and he can stay and sail at the same time, since he neither sails nor stays. He has been with everyone in every sensation at every hour of their life. Watching through the eyes and hearts of the protagonists, he has witnessed every tragedy on earth. With those who renounced he renounced. He fell in every battle, being the victor of them all.
He won his joy and his sorrow by winning all the joy and sorrow in the world.
He remembers his own voice shouting among the Jewish people all crowded together: “We’d rather have Barabbas!” And when he thought about that moment, the name of Barabbas reminded him that he had been Barabbas, as well as Christ, whom the people didn’t want. When he went back to trying to remember which man he’d been in the crowd, he realized he’d been all of them. When he looked up a little, he felt on his dreamed woman’s forehead the black hair of Mary, Jesus’s mother. He felt breasts. Since these steered his mind toward the sexual instinct, he suddenly wept and knew he was Mary Magdalene. He lovingly stretched out his hands but remembered when Pilate had washed them of all responsibility, and his figure straightened up, Roman governor, in the dreamed toga that lightly rubbed the ideal sensation of his own skin. He closed his eyes, the real eyes of his dream, with the multiple weariness of all he’d felt, and in one last reflex, before his sensitivity gave out, the final banderoles of everything he’d felt passed by, crested by eagles, in a twilight with green mountains in the background.
His weariness from so much scattered sensation made him depressed, and the depression made him have depressive feelings, which included—at his absolute weariest—a feeling of tender, tearful pity for others: a lullaby sung by a nanny in the night, when the friendless pauper meets on the road Our Lady dressed as a shepherdess, and she takes him by the hand up to heaven.
And his remembered childhood opened the door to Christ, who entered through his sensation of every tear yet to be wept.
* * *
For everyone we see and who interests us, we should create a biography of their past and future. One of the sage’s mental characteristics is his ability to dress up other people inside himself, giving them the clothes he deems most suitable for however he chooses to dream them.
Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story—about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness . . . . . . who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant. And his crowning glory would be if the whole of that sorrowful life he’d told were, from start to finish, absolutely false.
* * *
In its essence life is monotonous. Happiness therefore depends on a reasonably thorough adaptation to life’s monotony. By making ourselves monotonous, we make ourselves equal to life. Thus we live to the full. And living to the full is to be happy.
Unhealthy, illogical souls laugh—uneasily, deep down—at bourgeois happiness, at the monotonous life of the bourgeois man who obeys a daily routine . . . . . . , and at his wife who spends her time keeping the house tidy, is consumed by the minutiae of caring for the children, and talks about neighbors and acquaintances. That’s what happiness is, however. It seems, at first glance, that new things are what give pleasure to the mind; but there aren’t many new things, and each one is new only once. Our sensibility, furthermore, is limited, and it doesn’t vibrate indefinitely. Too many new things will eventually get tiresome, since our sensibility can’t keep up with all the stimulations it receives.
To resign oneself to monotony is to experience everything as forever new. The bourgeois’s vision of life is the scientific vision, since everything is indeed always new, and before this day this day never existed.
He, of course, would say none of this. Were he capable of saying it, he wouldn’t be capable of being happy. My observations only make him smile; and it’s his smile that brings me, in all their detail, the considerations I’m writing down, for future generations to ponder.
Translated by Richard Zenith
by Fernando Pessoa
Asterisks separate the short, autonomous prose pieces that follow. None was written in a notebook (see the longer note at the end for information on the author’s real notebooks). Some of the original manuscripts contain alternate words or phrases between the lines or in the margins; I have used the word or phrase I find most appealing for the translation. Lacunae and unfinished sentences—frequent inPessoa’s posthumously revealed work—are indicated by six dots: “. . . . . .”.—RZ
I always acted on the inside . . . I never touched life . . . Whenever I began to trace an action, I finished it in my dreams, heroically . . . A sword weighs more than the idea of a sword . . . I commanded large armies, won great battles, savored huge defeats—all inside me . . . I enjoyed strolling alone through green parks and down wide corridors, issuing commands to the trees and challenges to the hanging portraits . . . In the wide and dusky corridor that’s at the back of the palace I often strolled with my fiancée . . . I never had a real fiancée . . . I never knew how to love . . . I only knew how to dream of loving . . . If I liked to wear ladies’ rings on my fingers, it’s because I sometimes supposed that my hands belonged to a princess and that I, at least in the motions of my hands, was the woman I loved . . . One day I was found dressed up as a queen . . . I was dreaming I was my royal wife . . . I liked to see my face reflected, for I could dream it was someone else’s face—namely that of my beloved, since the reflection I saw denoted feminine features . . . How often my lips touched my lips in a mirror! . . . How often I clasped one of my hands with the other, or fondled my hair with my hand I’d become strange to, as if it were her hand touching me. It isn’t me who’s telling you this . . . Who’s speaking is what’s left of me.
* * *
Believing in nothing firmly and therefore accepting as equally valid, in principle (which is as far as they go), all opinions, and considering that a theory is worth only as much as the theorist, an emotion as much as the emotion’s expresser, I could never take seriously the literary dogma that consists in the use of a personality. Personality is a form of belief and, like all belief, impossible for the reasoner.
It’s a short step from believing in outer truth to believing in inner truth, from accepting a concept of the world as true to accepting a concept of our self as true. I don’t affirm that everything is fluid, since that would be an affirmation, but to our understanding everything is indeed fluid, and the truth, unfolding for us into various truths, disappears, since it cannot be multiple.
* * *
In me every thought, however much I’d like to preserve it intact, turns sooner or later into reverie. If I wish to set forth reasons or launch a train of argument, what comes out of me are sentences initially expressive of the thought itself, then phrases subsidiary to those initial sentences, and finally shadows and derivatives of those subsidiary phrases. I begin to meditate on the existence of God and soon find myself speaking of faraway parks, feudal processions, rivers that pass almost soundlessly beneath the windows of my contemplation . . . And I find myself speaking about them because I find myself seeing them, feeling them, and there’s a brief moment when my face is grazed by a real breeze rising from the surface of the dreamed river through metaphors, through the stylistic feudalism of my central self-abandon.
I like to think, because I know it won’t be long before I stop thinking. It’s as a point of departure that thinking delights me—a cold, metallic harbor station from which to set sail for the vast South. I sometimes try to focus my mind on a large metaphysical or even social problem, because I know that, ensconced in the hoarse voice of my reason, there are peacock tails ready to spread open for me as soon as I forget I’m thinking, and I know that humanity is a door in a wall that doesn’t exist, so I can open it onto whatever gardens I like.
Thank God for that ironic element in human destinies that makes dreams the mode of thought for the poor in life, even as it makes life the mode of thought—or thought the mode of life—for the poor in dreams.
But even dreaming channeled through thinking ends up making me weary. At which point I open my eyes from dreaming, go to the window, and transfer my dream to the streets and rooftops. And it’s in my distracted and profound contemplation of so very many roof tiles divided into rooftops, covering the astral contagion of people organized into streets, that my soul becomes truly detached from me, and I don’t think, I don’t dream, I don’t see, I don’t need to. Then I truly contemplate the abstraction of Nature—of Nature, the difference between man and God.
* * *
How often, in the age-old trajectory of the worlds, a stray comet must have brought an Earth to its end! A catastrophe so utterly material will determine the fate of countless mental and spiritual projects. Death spies on us, like a sister of the spirit, and Destiny . . . . . .
Death is our being subject to something outside us, and we, at each moment of our lives, are but reflections and a consequence of what surrounds us.
Death lurks in our every living act. Dead we’re born, dead we live, and already dead we enter death. Composed of cells living off their disintegration, we’re made of death.
* * *
As a child I used to save old cotton spools. I loved them with a sorrowful love—how vividly I remember—since their not being real filled me with compassion . . . One day I laid my hands on some miscellaneous chess pieces, and what happiness that was! I immediately thought of names for them all, and they passed into my dream world.
All these figures took on definite features. They had distinct lives. One of them, who I had decided was rowdy and liked sports, lived inside a box on top of my dresser, where each afternoon a streetcar passed by when I, and then he, would come home from school. The streetcar was made of the interiors of matchboxes, strung together somehow by wire. He’d bounce up and down when the car was in motion.
O my dead childhood! Forever living corpse in my breast! When I remember these toys I had as a boy already getting older, a sensation of tears warms my eyes, and a fierce and useless longing gnaws at me like a regret. All of that happened and has remained frozen and visible—seeable—in my past, in my perpetual idea of my bedroom from back then, spread out around my childhood person (who is unseeable except from within) going from my dresser to the nightstand, and from the nightstand to my bed, driving through the air the primitive streetcar that I imagined was part of the citywide network and that took my ridiculous wooden schoolmates home.
I endowed some of them with bad habits—smoking, stealing—but I’m not sexually inclined, and their only acts in this line were, I believe, a predilection for kissing girls and peeking at their legs, which seemed to me mere acts of play. I made them smoke rolled paper behind a large box that was on top of a suitcase. Sometimes a schoolteacher would come around. And it was with all their anxiety, which I obliged myself to feel, that I quickly hid the false cigarette and placed the smoker—who struck me as curiously nonchalant—at the corner to wait for the inevitable passing of the teacher, whom he greeted I don’t remember exactly how . . . Sometimes the figures were too far apart for me to move this one with one arm and that one with the other. I had to make them move alternately. This pained me the way it pains me today not to be able to give expression to a life . . .
Ah, but why do I remember this? Why didn’t I remain a child forever? Why didn’t I die there, in one of those moments, preoccupied with the wiles of my schoolmates and the as-if-unexpected arrival of my schoolteachers? Today I can’t do this . . . Today I have only reality, which I can’t play with . . . Poor little boy exiled in his manliness! Why did I have to grow up?
Today, when I remember this, I feel nostalgia for other things besides all this. More in me than my past has died.
* * *
The ancients hardly saw themselves. Today we see ourselves in all positions. Hence our self-horror and self-disgust.
Every man, to be able to live and love, needs to idealize himself (and, ultimately, those he loves). That’s why we love. But as soon as I see myself and compare what I see to an ideal—not high, even low—of human beauty, I give up on real life and on love.
The false aesthetic sensibility of the Greeks . . . How unhappy it must make a people to conceive such statues and be (inevitably) so imperfect physically, like all real humans!
That is, it would have made the Greeks unhappy if that’s how they’d felt. But there’s no sign of that feeling in their literature. It is, in fact, a purely modern feeling.
Even a beautiful woman does not satisfy like a statue. Because a woman is beautiful as well as other physical and moral things that are not beauty. A statue is only beauty. (It is also stone, but the stone is nothing for us, and so we ignore it, looking only at the beauty.)
* * *
Doing something contrary to what everyone else does is almost as bad as doing something because everyone else does it. It shows a similar preoccupation with others, a similar attention to their opinion—a sure sign of absolute inferiority.
That’s why I abhor people like Oscar Wilde and others who are intent on being immoral or infamous, and on impinging paradoxes and delirious opinions. No superior man deigns to grant other people’s opinion such importance that he’d bother to contradict it.
For the superior man, others don’t exist. He is his own other. If he wants to imitate someone, it’s himself he tries to imitate. If he wants to contradict someone, it’s himself he endeavors to contradict. He strives to hurt his own self, in its most intimate reaches. He plays tricks on his own opinions. He has long conversations with the sensations he feels, talking down to them and . . . . . .
Every man that exists is Me. I have all society inside me. I am my best friends and my truest enemies. The rest—what’s on the outside, from the hills and plains to people and . . . . . . —is all just Landscape . . .
The great defect of work and effort is that they can become habits. The same defect pertains to inaction. It also tends to become a habit. The right way for the superior man to be contrary is to refrain from having habits, or opinions, or a definite individuality.
But it’s not that we shun opinions and habits so as to smile at the opinions and habits of others . . .
To have a fixed personality, regular habits, and consistent opinions is to belong to oneself. We should always change our opinion, personality and intentions, without that opinion or . . . . . . ever coinciding with other people’s.
The superior man’s efforts should all be spent on trying to forget that the outer world exists.
* * *
I like you so much it embarrasses me. There are all sorts of good reasons not to like you, except that of not liking you, because I do. How fantastic to feel what we don’t want to, and to have an independent heart.
* * *
Man’s greatest triumph is to arrive at the conviction that his being ridiculous exists only for other people, and whenever they want it to exist. Then he’ll stop worrying about the ridiculous, which he cannot annihilate, since it isn’t in him.
The superior man, to enjoy his superiority in perfect calm, must teach himself to forget three things: the ridiculous, work, and dedication.
Dedicating himself to no one, he naturally demands no dedication from others. Sober, chaste, frugal, and touching life as little as possible so as not to be inconvenienced nor get too close to things, which could destroy their capacity for being dreamed, he isolates himself to accommodate his pride and his disillusion. He learns to feel everything without feeling it directly, since to feel directly is subjection—the subjecting of oneself to the action of the thing felt.
An Olympic Whitman, a Proteus of understanding, he lives in other people’s sorrows and joys without living them really and truly. He can, at his pleasure, set sail or stay behind when ships depart, and he can stay and sail at the same time, since he neither sails nor stays. He has been with everyone in every sensation at every hour of their life. Watching through the eyes and hearts of the protagonists, he has witnessed every tragedy on earth. With those who renounced he renounced. He fell in every battle, being the victor of them all.
He won his joy and his sorrow by winning all the joy and sorrow in the world.
He remembers his own voice shouting among the Jewish people all crowded together: “We’d rather have Barabbas!” And when he thought about that moment, the name of Barabbas reminded him that he had been Barabbas, as well as Christ, whom the people didn’t want. When he went back to trying to remember which man he’d been in the crowd, he realized he’d been all of them. When he looked up a little, he felt on his dreamed woman’s forehead the black hair of Mary, Jesus’s mother. He felt breasts. Since these steered his mind toward the sexual instinct, he suddenly wept and knew he was Mary Magdalene. He lovingly stretched out his hands but remembered when Pilate had washed them of all responsibility, and his figure straightened up, Roman governor, in the dreamed toga that lightly rubbed the ideal sensation of his own skin. He closed his eyes, the real eyes of his dream, with the multiple weariness of all he’d felt, and in one last reflex, before his sensitivity gave out, the final banderoles of everything he’d felt passed by, crested by eagles, in a twilight with green mountains in the background.
His weariness from so much scattered sensation made him depressed, and the depression made him have depressive feelings, which included—at his absolute weariest—a feeling of tender, tearful pity for others: a lullaby sung by a nanny in the night, when the friendless pauper meets on the road Our Lady dressed as a shepherdess, and she takes him by the hand up to heaven.
And his remembered childhood opened the door to Christ, who entered through his sensation of every tear yet to be wept.
* * *
For everyone we see and who interests us, we should create a biography of their past and future. One of the sage’s mental characteristics is his ability to dress up other people inside himself, giving them the clothes he deems most suitable for however he chooses to dream them.
Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story—about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness . . . . . . who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant. And his crowning glory would be if the whole of that sorrowful life he’d told were, from start to finish, absolutely false.
* * *
In its essence life is monotonous. Happiness therefore depends on a reasonably thorough adaptation to life’s monotony. By making ourselves monotonous, we make ourselves equal to life. Thus we live to the full. And living to the full is to be happy.
Unhealthy, illogical souls laugh—uneasily, deep down—at bourgeois happiness, at the monotonous life of the bourgeois man who obeys a daily routine . . . . . . , and at his wife who spends her time keeping the house tidy, is consumed by the minutiae of caring for the children, and talks about neighbors and acquaintances. That’s what happiness is, however. It seems, at first glance, that new things are what give pleasure to the mind; but there aren’t many new things, and each one is new only once. Our sensibility, furthermore, is limited, and it doesn’t vibrate indefinitely. Too many new things will eventually get tiresome, since our sensibility can’t keep up with all the stimulations it receives.
To resign oneself to monotony is to experience everything as forever new. The bourgeois’s vision of life is the scientific vision, since everything is indeed always new, and before this day this day never existed.
He, of course, would say none of this. Were he capable of saying it, he wouldn’t be capable of being happy. My observations only make him smile; and it’s his smile that brings me, in all their detail, the considerations I’m writing down, for future generations to ponder.
Translated by Richard Zenith
Friday, January 2, 2009
First Word
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since..."
"I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific..."
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning..."
"Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he was refused..."
"Evening.Lenny is sitting on the sofa with a newspaper, a pencil in his hand. He wears a dark suit. He makes occasional marks on the back page."
"It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, bu I did not beleive there would ever be a future..."
"I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific..."
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning..."
"Fyodor Pavlovitch made her an offer; inquiries were made about him and he was refused..."
"Evening.Lenny is sitting on the sofa with a newspaper, a pencil in his hand. He wears a dark suit. He makes occasional marks on the back page."
"It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, bu I did not beleive there would ever be a future..."
Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
brokoliçorbası
Brokoli çorbası
* 300 gr. brokoli
* 1 çorba kaşığı tereyağı
* 1 çorba kaşığı tepeleme un
* 1 su bardağı süt
* 2 su bardağı su
* 2 çorba kaşığı rendelenmiş kaşar peyniri
* Tuz
* Karabiber
* Pulbiber
Bir tencereye uygun miktarda su koyup, üzerine buharlı pişiriciyi yerleştirin ve çiçeklerini ayırdığınız brokoliyi 5 dakika boyunca haşlayın. Daha sonra blendıra alın. Üzerine yarım çay bardağı haşlama suyundan ekleyip, blendırdan geçirin. Tereyağını bir tencereye alıp kızdırdıktan sonra, üzerine unu ekleyin. Unun rengi dönünce, sürekli karıştırarak sütü ve suyu ilave edin. Brokolileri, tuz ve karabiberi de ekleyin. 1-2 taşım kaynatıp, ocaktan alın. Üzerine rendelenmiş kaşar peyniri serpin. Haşlanmış brokoli ve pulbiber ile süsleyerek servis yapın.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Bırak fırsatlar kaçsın, yeter ki hayat burada kalsın!
Sıkış tepiş bir kafedeydim. Yanı başımdaki masada 20'li yaşlarına henüz girmiş üç genç gelecek projelerinden konuşuyorlardı.
Kulak misafiri olmamak imkansızdı.
Bir ara içlerinden birinin "dünya hep elimden kaçıyormuş gibi geliyor; yapılacak ne çok şey var ve hiçbirine yetişemiyorum" dediğini işittim.
Ardından "bazen hırsımdan ağlamak istiyorum" diye ekledi.
Ah çocuk, diye söylendim içimden; bu bakış açısının hiç sonu yok, bir bilsen!
Sonra kendi gençliğim geldi aklıma...
Benim için de öyleydi.
Dünya dedikleri, ne zaman durağa gelsem beni almadan kapılarını "taak" diye kapatıp giden bir belediye otobüsüydü!
Sık sık umutsuzluğa kapılır, içime kapanırdım.
Hayatın kovalanacak değil, "yaşanacak" bir şey olduğunu öğrenmek çok zamanımı aldı.
Biz yetişkinlerin o gençten farkımız var mı?
Tatile gidiyoruz ama tadını çıkartmakta zorlanıyoruz. Çünkü aklımızda hep gidilecek başka yerler, çıkılacak başka tatiller var.
İş bulup çalışıyoruz ama tam anlamıyla sevinemiyoruz buna. Bu işten daha iyisi, daha çok kazandıranı olabilirdi diye düşünüp durmaktan bitkin düşüyoruz.
Aşk mı? Onda bile tedirginlik ve kararsızlık yakamızı bırakmıyor. Geceleri aşktan kavrulan nice insan gündüzleri başka havadan çalıyor; rekabet, sosyal flört ve iktidar arzusu ruhlarını yiyip bitiriyor.
Yaşlılar deseniz...
Birçoğu "görülecek çok yer, tadılacak çok lezzet var ama vaktim kalmadı" diye hayıflanmakla günü geçiriyor.
Onca huzursuzluk yetmiyor!
Bir de "ölmeden önce yapılacak, gidilecek, görülecek, tadılacak" şeyler listelerine kafamızı takıyoruz.
Bu listeleri içeren kitaplar kapış kapış gidiyor.
100'den aşağısı da kurtarmıyor!
Gidilecek 100 yer, yapılacak 100 şey...
Oysa alttan alta hissediyoruz ki, tek bir şeyi bile gönülden ve "iyi" yapsak, yetecek de artacak bile!
Ama bir ömür boyunca tek bir yazarı derinlemesine tanıyıp bütün yapıtlarını tekrar tekrar okumanın; bir besteciye gönülden bağlanmanın; bir şehre aşık olmanın tatlarından söz eden yok ki!
Böyle bir tercihin yoksulluk değil, tam aksine zenginlik olduğu çoktan unutulmuş.
Şöyle bir bakın!
Çoğumuz durmadan koşan ama bir türlü bitiş çizgisine varamayan atletleri andırıyoruz.
Azın öz olabileceğine inanç kalmadı artık.
Gerçek olamayacak hayaller "boş" sayılıyor.
O yüzden işte...
Yazımın başında sözünü ettiğim "hırsımdan ağlayacak gibi oluyorum" diyen genci düşünüyorum da...
Yavrucak kim bilir ne kadar zaman sonra anlayacak ki, dünya insanın gölgesine benzer.
Kovalarsan kaçar. Asla yakalayamazsın.
Kaçarsan da kovalar!
HAŞMET BABAOĞLU
Kulak misafiri olmamak imkansızdı.
Bir ara içlerinden birinin "dünya hep elimden kaçıyormuş gibi geliyor; yapılacak ne çok şey var ve hiçbirine yetişemiyorum" dediğini işittim.
Ardından "bazen hırsımdan ağlamak istiyorum" diye ekledi.
Ah çocuk, diye söylendim içimden; bu bakış açısının hiç sonu yok, bir bilsen!
Sonra kendi gençliğim geldi aklıma...
Benim için de öyleydi.
Dünya dedikleri, ne zaman durağa gelsem beni almadan kapılarını "taak" diye kapatıp giden bir belediye otobüsüydü!
Sık sık umutsuzluğa kapılır, içime kapanırdım.
Hayatın kovalanacak değil, "yaşanacak" bir şey olduğunu öğrenmek çok zamanımı aldı.
Biz yetişkinlerin o gençten farkımız var mı?
Tatile gidiyoruz ama tadını çıkartmakta zorlanıyoruz. Çünkü aklımızda hep gidilecek başka yerler, çıkılacak başka tatiller var.
İş bulup çalışıyoruz ama tam anlamıyla sevinemiyoruz buna. Bu işten daha iyisi, daha çok kazandıranı olabilirdi diye düşünüp durmaktan bitkin düşüyoruz.
Aşk mı? Onda bile tedirginlik ve kararsızlık yakamızı bırakmıyor. Geceleri aşktan kavrulan nice insan gündüzleri başka havadan çalıyor; rekabet, sosyal flört ve iktidar arzusu ruhlarını yiyip bitiriyor.
Yaşlılar deseniz...
Birçoğu "görülecek çok yer, tadılacak çok lezzet var ama vaktim kalmadı" diye hayıflanmakla günü geçiriyor.
Onca huzursuzluk yetmiyor!
Bir de "ölmeden önce yapılacak, gidilecek, görülecek, tadılacak" şeyler listelerine kafamızı takıyoruz.
Bu listeleri içeren kitaplar kapış kapış gidiyor.
100'den aşağısı da kurtarmıyor!
Gidilecek 100 yer, yapılacak 100 şey...
Oysa alttan alta hissediyoruz ki, tek bir şeyi bile gönülden ve "iyi" yapsak, yetecek de artacak bile!
Ama bir ömür boyunca tek bir yazarı derinlemesine tanıyıp bütün yapıtlarını tekrar tekrar okumanın; bir besteciye gönülden bağlanmanın; bir şehre aşık olmanın tatlarından söz eden yok ki!
Böyle bir tercihin yoksulluk değil, tam aksine zenginlik olduğu çoktan unutulmuş.
Şöyle bir bakın!
Çoğumuz durmadan koşan ama bir türlü bitiş çizgisine varamayan atletleri andırıyoruz.
Azın öz olabileceğine inanç kalmadı artık.
Gerçek olamayacak hayaller "boş" sayılıyor.
O yüzden işte...
Yazımın başında sözünü ettiğim "hırsımdan ağlayacak gibi oluyorum" diyen genci düşünüyorum da...
Yavrucak kim bilir ne kadar zaman sonra anlayacak ki, dünya insanın gölgesine benzer.
Kovalarsan kaçar. Asla yakalayamazsın.
Kaçarsan da kovalar!
HAŞMET BABAOĞLU
Monday, September 8, 2008
FINE DAYS
These fine days have been my ruin.
On this kind of day I resigned
My job in ``Pious Foundations.''
On this kind of day
I started to smoke
On this kind of day
I fell in love
On this kind of day I forgot
To bring home bread and salt
On this kind of day I had a relapse
In my versifying disease.
These fine days have been my ruin.
Orhan Veli Kanik
Translated by Bernard Lewis (1982)
FREE
We live free
Air is free, clouds are free
Valleys and hills are free
Rain and mud are free
The outside of cars
The entrances of cinemas
And the shop windows are free
Bread and cheese cost money
But stale water is free
Freedom can cost your head
But prison is free
We live free
Orhan Veli Kanik
Translated by Bernard Lewis (1982)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Bir Şuursuzluk Anıtı Olarak Titanic
Yazının tamamını konuk sanatçı olarak yer aldığım kardeş blog Yenilmezlik İnancı'nda okuyabilirsiniz....
Monday, April 21, 2008
balıklı bulgur
Filmin ismini ilk duyduğumda büyük bir merak uyanmıştı içimde. Yemeklerin isimlerinin lezzetiyle ilgili ipucu vermeleri gibi, Sudan asıllı yönetmen Abdellatif Kechiche de çok hoş bir tat bıraktı ağzımızda... Oyunculuklar pek hoş, hikaye pek hoş, filmin sonu pek hoş...Filmi izlerken Fassbinder'in filmi Korku Ruhu Kemirir'deki tartışma sahnesi geldi aklıma. Adam kendinden yaşça büyük Alman karısına "Bana kuskus pişirmiyorsun hiç," diyerek isyan ediyordu. İlişkilerine ve yakınlıklarına karşı onca insan olmasına rağmen hatırımda kaldığı kadarıyla kavga ettikleri -ağızlarının tadının bozulduğu- tek sahne oydu.
O tarafa ait kültürlerde, kuskusun bir aşk, özen, hatta ve hatta şehvet sembolü olduğunu hiç bilmiyordum. Bu filmden sonra iyice ikna oldum. "Kuskus" hassas mevzu...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Fados ya da yıldızların külleri...
Carlos Saura'nın bu sefer fadoları ele aldığı kendi dili İspanyolca dışında yaptığı ilk film. (Hayır, çok uzağa gitmemiş, bu seferki de Portekizce)Her zamanki Saura tadını alıyor insan, Fadoların kendisi çok büyüleyici, müzisyenlerin icra sırasındaki ışıkları çok büyüleyici. Daha önce dinleyip neden bahsettiğini anlayamadığımız genel fado ruh haline de vakıf oluyoruz alt yazılar sayesinde... Bir arabesk tadı alıyoruz, çok tanıdık sularda olduğumuzu düşünüyoruz. Bir fadonun şu sözü aklıma kazınmış:
Şu ruh denen şey hayatı gerçek sanıyor...
Ne denir şimdi bundan sonra, nada!
Monday, February 18, 2008
suyun ayak sesi
niçin at soylu hayvandır
güvercin güzeldir diyorlar
niçin kimsenin kafesinde akbaba yok
yoncanın kırmızı laleden neyi eksik
gözleri yıkamalı
başka türlü görmeli
sözcükleri yıkamalı
sözcük rüzgar olup esmeli yağmur olup yağmalı
Soprab SepheriMonday, October 8, 2007
dilemma
- kaç yaşındasınız?
+ onsekiz
- hımmm, onsekiz... dilimizdeki en güzel kelime.
+ insanlarla hep böyle mi konuşursunuz?
- evet. biri shakespeare'le aynı gezegende yaşadığımızı hatırlamalı.
+ onsekiz
- hımmm, onsekiz... dilimizdeki en güzel kelime.
+ insanlarla hep böyle mi konuşursunuz?
- evet. biri shakespeare'le aynı gezegende yaşadığımızı hatırlamalı.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
terminal bar
İzlediğim en iyi filmlerden biriydi. Bir yerlerden edinin, izleyin. Stefan Nadelman aile yadigarı barın hikayesini babasının fotoğraflarıyla anlatmış. Paul Auster'ın "Smoke"unu anımsattı bana...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Bu mezarlarda, hayata dair bir son izlenim var mı? Ve arılar, susan bir yarı-sözcük buluyorlar mı çiçeklerin ağızlarında? Ey çiçekler, mutluluk içgüdülerimizin esirleri, ölülerimizle beraber bize doğru geri geliyor musunuz damarlarda? Bizim gücümüzden nasıl kaçmalı, çiçekler? Bizim çiçeklerimiz olmamak için ne yapmalı? Gül, bütün taçyapraklarıyla mı uzaklaşır bizden? Yalnız-gül, sadece-gül mü olmak ister? Bunca gözkapağının altında hiç kimsenin uykusu mu?
rilke
rilke
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
İTAKİ
İtaki’ye doğru yola çıktığın zaman
yolunu uzatmaya bak
serüvenler, bilgilerle uzasın yolun.
Lestrigonlar’dan ve Kikloplar’dan
Azgın Poseidon’dan korkma.
Bunları görmeyeceksin zaten, düşüncen
soylu ise ve seçkin bir duygu
dolmuşsa ruhuna ve gövdene
Lestrigonlar, Kikloplar
ve azgın Poseidon, çıkamayacak karşına
onları ruhunda taşımıyorsan
ruhun onları çağırmayacaksa.
Yolun uzasınNice yaz şafaklarıyla beraber
ilk gördüğün limanlara
-coşkuyla, sevinçle- varmak için;
durup Fenike çarşılarından
has mallar almak için
sedefi ve mercanı, abanoz ve kehribarı
ve her yana gönlünce saçabileceğin
başdöndürücü kokuları;
sonra Mısır kentlerini görmek için
bilgelerden bilgiler dermek için
yolunu uzatmaya bak.
İtaki hep aklında olsun
Amacın orasıdır ve oraya gidiyorsun.
Ama gerek yok ayağını çabuk tutmana,
Yıllarca sürmelidir bu gezi,
öyle ki yaşlanıp o adaya vardığında,
yolda kazandıklarınla zaten zengin,
İtaki’den zenginlik beklemeyesin.
İtaki eşsiz bir gezi sağladı sana,
O olmasa yola çıkmayacaktın
onun vereceği bir şeyi yoktu başka.
Ve şimdi sen onu yoksul buluyorsan,
İtaki aldatmış değildir seni.
Artık sen bir bilgesin, bunca deneyden geçtin
İtakiler ne demektir artık bilirsin.
Konstantin Kavafis
yolunu uzatmaya bak
serüvenler, bilgilerle uzasın yolun.
Lestrigonlar’dan ve Kikloplar’dan
Azgın Poseidon’dan korkma.
Bunları görmeyeceksin zaten, düşüncen
soylu ise ve seçkin bir duygu
dolmuşsa ruhuna ve gövdene
Lestrigonlar, Kikloplar
ve azgın Poseidon, çıkamayacak karşına
onları ruhunda taşımıyorsan
ruhun onları çağırmayacaksa.
Yolun uzasınNice yaz şafaklarıyla beraber
ilk gördüğün limanlara
-coşkuyla, sevinçle- varmak için;
durup Fenike çarşılarından
has mallar almak için
sedefi ve mercanı, abanoz ve kehribarı
ve her yana gönlünce saçabileceğin
başdöndürücü kokuları;
sonra Mısır kentlerini görmek için
bilgelerden bilgiler dermek için
yolunu uzatmaya bak.
İtaki hep aklında olsun
Amacın orasıdır ve oraya gidiyorsun.
Ama gerek yok ayağını çabuk tutmana,
Yıllarca sürmelidir bu gezi,
öyle ki yaşlanıp o adaya vardığında,
yolda kazandıklarınla zaten zengin,
İtaki’den zenginlik beklemeyesin.
İtaki eşsiz bir gezi sağladı sana,
O olmasa yola çıkmayacaktın
onun vereceği bir şeyi yoktu başka.
Ve şimdi sen onu yoksul buluyorsan,
İtaki aldatmış değildir seni.
Artık sen bir bilgesin, bunca deneyden geçtin
İtakiler ne demektir artık bilirsin.
Konstantin Kavafis
I'm melancholic and proud
J: Do you think you're attracted to melancholia?
M: Attracted to it? I’m addicted to it. I'm a paid up member of Melancholics Anonymous (laughs).
J: But also this nagging sense of yearning. Unrequited is something that crops up in your songs, and in your conversation, quite a lot. And the yearning, melancholy notes of the music. It’s quite an interesting thing this isn't it because - we’ve talked about this many times before - but melancholy is a real emotion, unlike depression. Depression is just an emptiness. A void.
M: Absolutely. Melancholia is a sweet sadness. It can be very life enhancing and productive whereas depression is a sickness, a disability. You can't move, you can't function. I think people that have experienced neither tend to confuse the two.
J: Melancholy can be really beautiful.
M: I think it heightens the senses. I think you really do notice things during those periods. For instance after a relationship break-up, after the initial trauma, there can really be a sense of feeling fully alive. You know, you really notice sounds, images, music, colour and people more. It heightens and tightens the strings of the nervous system. Paintings glow, music pulsates, attractive members of the opposite sex seem more vibrant and alive. I really think that positive melancholy is a wonderful thing, and a lot of fantastic music and art is created in that spirit, and enjoyed in that spirit. I think it’s really easy for critics to dismiss stuff as depressing. But for me, virtually every song I've ever written is in a minor key, which I didn't realise until some journalist in Italy pointed it out. "Really, you sure?" I said to her happily. “Well, I’m just a minor key kinda guy” (laughs)
M: Attracted to it? I’m addicted to it. I'm a paid up member of Melancholics Anonymous (laughs).
J: But also this nagging sense of yearning. Unrequited is something that crops up in your songs, and in your conversation, quite a lot. And the yearning, melancholy notes of the music. It’s quite an interesting thing this isn't it because - we’ve talked about this many times before - but melancholy is a real emotion, unlike depression. Depression is just an emptiness. A void.
M: Absolutely. Melancholia is a sweet sadness. It can be very life enhancing and productive whereas depression is a sickness, a disability. You can't move, you can't function. I think people that have experienced neither tend to confuse the two.
J: Melancholy can be really beautiful.
M: I think it heightens the senses. I think you really do notice things during those periods. For instance after a relationship break-up, after the initial trauma, there can really be a sense of feeling fully alive. You know, you really notice sounds, images, music, colour and people more. It heightens and tightens the strings of the nervous system. Paintings glow, music pulsates, attractive members of the opposite sex seem more vibrant and alive. I really think that positive melancholy is a wonderful thing, and a lot of fantastic music and art is created in that spirit, and enjoyed in that spirit. I think it’s really easy for critics to dismiss stuff as depressing. But for me, virtually every song I've ever written is in a minor key, which I didn't realise until some journalist in Italy pointed it out. "Really, you sure?" I said to her happily. “Well, I’m just a minor key kinda guy” (laughs)
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Keyfe mettefak!!!
THE FLY
it's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky.
it's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight.
they say the sun is sometimes eclipsed by a moon.
y'know i don't see you when she walks in the room.
it's no secret that a friend is someone who lets you help.
it's no secret that a liar won't believe anyone else.
they say a secret is something you tell one other person...
so i'm telling you... child.
a man will beg.
love we shine like a a man will crawl. burning star.
on the sheer face of love we're fallin' from like a fly on a wall.
the sky.... tonight.
it's no secret at all.
it's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest.
it's no secret ambition bites the nails of success.
every artist is a cannibal. every poet is a thief.
all kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.
a man will rise.
love we shine like a a man will fall. burning star.
from the sheer face of love we're fallin' from like a fly from a wall.
the sky.... tonight.
it's no secret at all. oh yeah...
it's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky.
the universe exploding 'cosa one man's lie.
look i gotta go. yeah i'm running outta change.
there's a lot of things...
if i could i'd rearrange.
it's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky.
it's no secret that our world is in darkness tonight.
they say the sun is sometimes eclipsed by a moon.
y'know i don't see you when she walks in the room.
it's no secret that a friend is someone who lets you help.
it's no secret that a liar won't believe anyone else.
they say a secret is something you tell one other person...
so i'm telling you... child.
a man will beg.
love we shine like a a man will crawl. burning star.
on the sheer face of love we're fallin' from like a fly on a wall.
the sky.... tonight.
it's no secret at all.
it's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest.
it's no secret ambition bites the nails of success.
every artist is a cannibal. every poet is a thief.
all kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.
a man will rise.
love we shine like a a man will fall. burning star.
from the sheer face of love we're fallin' from like a fly from a wall.
the sky.... tonight.
it's no secret at all. oh yeah...
it's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky.
the universe exploding 'cosa one man's lie.
look i gotta go. yeah i'm running outta change.
there's a lot of things...
if i could i'd rearrange.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Paul Auster Röportajı- 22 Şubat 2007
- Gerçek, tamamen onu nasıl algıladığınıza bağlı bir şeydir
Nesnel gerçeklik diye bir şey yoktur ki. Her şey ona nasıl baktığımıza bağlıdır. Gerçek, büyük ölçüde kültürel bir gelenektir ya da bireylerin algılayış biçimlerine göre farklılık gösterir.
Gerçeğin gündelik yaşam içerisinde bir ayarsızlığı, umulmadık bir anda kendini var ediş biçimi vardır. Aslında bunu herkes bilir. Ama çoğu insan kabul etmek istemez. Çok rahatsız edicidir gerçeğin kontrol altına alınamayacak oluşu. Zira insanlar umduklarını bulmak ister. Oysa gerçeğin böyle bir ayarı yoktur. İşin aslı umulduğu gibi değildir yani. Son derece çılgın, umulmadık şeyler olur dünyada. Sürekli
- Bir insan kendine erişemezse ötekinin sınırına eremez
Bence kimlik dediğimiz sabitlenebilecek bir şey değildir. Bir insan ya da karakter -adına ne dersek diyelim- bir tayf gibidir. Renkli bir tayf. Ya da içinde bir sürü nota bulunan bir klavye. Hemen her zaman değişiriz. Düşüncelerimiz, tavırlarımız, içinde kendimizi bulduğumuz koşullar. Değişiriz. Atlamalar yaparız. Bu arada kendimizi ve kim olduğumuzu anlamaya çalışırız. Ama asla tam manasıyla kim olduğumuzu bulamayız. Bu ne zamana kadar sürer? Bir kriz anı... Beklenmedik gelişmeler... Aniden baş gösteren sıkıntılar. Bu nokta bana çok ilginç geliyor. İşte tam bu nokta. Gerçek bir sıkıntıyla yüzleşme anı.
Kendiniz... Bilemezsiniz. Hiçbir zaman bilmezsiniz gerçekten kim olduğunuzu. Bu her zaman bana müthiş bir fikir olarak gelmiştir.
Nesnel gerçeklik diye bir şey yoktur ki. Her şey ona nasıl baktığımıza bağlıdır. Gerçek, büyük ölçüde kültürel bir gelenektir ya da bireylerin algılayış biçimlerine göre farklılık gösterir.
Gerçeğin gündelik yaşam içerisinde bir ayarsızlığı, umulmadık bir anda kendini var ediş biçimi vardır. Aslında bunu herkes bilir. Ama çoğu insan kabul etmek istemez. Çok rahatsız edicidir gerçeğin kontrol altına alınamayacak oluşu. Zira insanlar umduklarını bulmak ister. Oysa gerçeğin böyle bir ayarı yoktur. İşin aslı umulduğu gibi değildir yani. Son derece çılgın, umulmadık şeyler olur dünyada. Sürekli
- Bir insan kendine erişemezse ötekinin sınırına eremez
Bence kimlik dediğimiz sabitlenebilecek bir şey değildir. Bir insan ya da karakter -adına ne dersek diyelim- bir tayf gibidir. Renkli bir tayf. Ya da içinde bir sürü nota bulunan bir klavye. Hemen her zaman değişiriz. Düşüncelerimiz, tavırlarımız, içinde kendimizi bulduğumuz koşullar. Değişiriz. Atlamalar yaparız. Bu arada kendimizi ve kim olduğumuzu anlamaya çalışırız. Ama asla tam manasıyla kim olduğumuzu bulamayız. Bu ne zamana kadar sürer? Bir kriz anı... Beklenmedik gelişmeler... Aniden baş gösteren sıkıntılar. Bu nokta bana çok ilginç geliyor. İşte tam bu nokta. Gerçek bir sıkıntıyla yüzleşme anı.
Kendiniz... Bilemezsiniz. Hiçbir zaman bilmezsiniz gerçekten kim olduğunuzu. Bu her zaman bana müthiş bir fikir olarak gelmiştir.
Monday, February 12, 2007
OF NOT BEING A JEW
bana bırakılan neyse ona burun kıvırdım
gittim bir kuyudan su çektim
halka boynumdan geçti
geçti boynuma kemend
d harfine bak dedim nasıl da soylu duruyor sonunda kelimenin
harfe bak, harfe dokun, harfin içinde eri
harf ol harfle birlikte kıyam et
harf of harfler ummanına bat
çünkü gördüm ne varsa sonunda kelimenin
çünkü böndür altında kaldığım töhmet
uğradığım kinayeler bön ve berbat.
Evet, ilmektir boynumdaki ama ben
kimsenin kölesi değilim
tarantula yazdılar diye göğsümdeki yaftaya
tarantulaymış benim adım diyecek değilim
tam düşecekken tutunduğum tuğlayı
kendime rabb bellemiyeceğim
razı değilim beni tanımayan tarihe
beni sinesine sarmayan
tabiattan rıza dilenmeyeceğim.
Gittim su çekdim en derin kuyudan
en hileli desteden
kendi kartımı çektim
yaktım belgeleri
bütün tanıkları yoketmek için
ricacıları öldürdüm
onlar bu dumanlı dünyanın
beni nasıl özlediğini görmüş olabilirdi
gerçekten özlemişti beni dünya öze çekmişti
özüm gelinceye kadar bana temas etmişti
bu dokunuş parlatınca beni
benden biraz dünya
isteyen ricacıları
öldürdüm ve kıtal bitti.
Yazık.
ismet özel
gittim bir kuyudan su çektim
halka boynumdan geçti
geçti boynuma kemend
d harfine bak dedim nasıl da soylu duruyor sonunda kelimenin
harfe bak, harfe dokun, harfin içinde eri
harf ol harfle birlikte kıyam et
harf of harfler ummanına bat
çünkü gördüm ne varsa sonunda kelimenin
çünkü böndür altında kaldığım töhmet
uğradığım kinayeler bön ve berbat.
Evet, ilmektir boynumdaki ama ben
kimsenin kölesi değilim
tarantula yazdılar diye göğsümdeki yaftaya
tarantulaymış benim adım diyecek değilim
tam düşecekken tutunduğum tuğlayı
kendime rabb bellemiyeceğim
razı değilim beni tanımayan tarihe
beni sinesine sarmayan
tabiattan rıza dilenmeyeceğim.
Gittim su çekdim en derin kuyudan
en hileli desteden
kendi kartımı çektim
yaktım belgeleri
bütün tanıkları yoketmek için
ricacıları öldürdüm
onlar bu dumanlı dünyanın
beni nasıl özlediğini görmüş olabilirdi
gerçekten özlemişti beni dünya öze çekmişti
özüm gelinceye kadar bana temas etmişti
bu dokunuş parlatınca beni
benden biraz dünya
isteyen ricacıları
öldürdüm ve kıtal bitti.
Yazık.
ismet özel
Thursday, February 8, 2007
gök boş nereye bağlasam atımı
Ölü Timur Gökyüzüne Bakıyor
Ordum kalabalıktı, ölüm kalabalık,
Nereye bağlasam atımı? Gök boş.
Bir o kalmıştı alınacak daha
Yeryüzü sınırına vardığımda.
Ama gündüz mü öncedir, gece mi?
Vaktimdi geniş alınlı toprak
Zaman hem ileri gidiyor hem geriye
And olsun gecelerin çivisine.
Ve her an özdeşi bir öncekinin
Gökte ve yerde gizli bir şey yoktur
Ve hiçbir şey hiçten daha gerçek değildi
Bitecek miydi gökleri de alsam?
Olanı biteni baştan başladım yaşamaya
Utkuların ödülü yalnızlık, unutmam
Atımın üstünde esneyip gülümserdim
Tenimi bir hüzün kaplardı kimi zaman
Benimi yitirirdim acılar içinde
Baştan baştan. Bu ceza ne kadar sürecek böyle?
Sizler hepiniz su ve toprak olun
Bir daha yaşamayın yaşadığınızı
Ben gece doğdum gündüz diye
Uyuyan çiçeği gördüm tacı kapalı
Tüfeksiz bir yürek verdi bizlere tanrı
Ve toprak eşittir yıldızlı göğe.
Sıkıldım. Sıkıyor beni bu zamansızlık.
Benliğime yargılıyım sonuna kadar.
Her şey olduğu gibiydi ne korkunç!
Yaprağın tozuna benzer insanın tozu
Ve tanrı kim olursa olsun
Tomurcuklanır o, sonra da solar.
Baştan baştan. Özerk bir köleydim ben
Bir uyur gezer gururuydum ben
Tabutun içinde eksik bir ölüydüm ben
Başımızı öne eğdiren tipi
Çarpıp duran kapıydım ben.
Gök boş. Nereye bağlasam atımı?
Sessizlikti benim kalabalığım
Bir ölümden başka bir ölüme dek
Yalnız ben isterdim ve kendim paylaşırdım
Özgür insan isteğini istemekle beslenir
Gök boş. Nereye bağlasam atımı?
Melih Cevdet Anday
Ordum kalabalıktı, ölüm kalabalık,
Nereye bağlasam atımı? Gök boş.
Bir o kalmıştı alınacak daha
Yeryüzü sınırına vardığımda.
Ama gündüz mü öncedir, gece mi?
Vaktimdi geniş alınlı toprak
Zaman hem ileri gidiyor hem geriye
And olsun gecelerin çivisine.
Ve her an özdeşi bir öncekinin
Gökte ve yerde gizli bir şey yoktur
Ve hiçbir şey hiçten daha gerçek değildi
Bitecek miydi gökleri de alsam?
Olanı biteni baştan başladım yaşamaya
Utkuların ödülü yalnızlık, unutmam
Atımın üstünde esneyip gülümserdim
Tenimi bir hüzün kaplardı kimi zaman
Benimi yitirirdim acılar içinde
Baştan baştan. Bu ceza ne kadar sürecek böyle?
Sizler hepiniz su ve toprak olun
Bir daha yaşamayın yaşadığınızı
Ben gece doğdum gündüz diye
Uyuyan çiçeği gördüm tacı kapalı
Tüfeksiz bir yürek verdi bizlere tanrı
Ve toprak eşittir yıldızlı göğe.
Sıkıldım. Sıkıyor beni bu zamansızlık.
Benliğime yargılıyım sonuna kadar.
Her şey olduğu gibiydi ne korkunç!
Yaprağın tozuna benzer insanın tozu
Ve tanrı kim olursa olsun
Tomurcuklanır o, sonra da solar.
Baştan baştan. Özerk bir köleydim ben
Bir uyur gezer gururuydum ben
Tabutun içinde eksik bir ölüydüm ben
Başımızı öne eğdiren tipi
Çarpıp duran kapıydım ben.
Gök boş. Nereye bağlasam atımı?
Sessizlikti benim kalabalığım
Bir ölümden başka bir ölüme dek
Yalnız ben isterdim ve kendim paylaşırdım
Özgür insan isteğini istemekle beslenir
Gök boş. Nereye bağlasam atımı?
Melih Cevdet Anday
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